Today I’m kicking off my series on navigating a changing market by reviewing the book “Shift” by Gary Keller, which was written during the last market shift. In my last video, I mentioned that we’re officially seeing signs of a market shift in the Baltimore area.

“Shift” has truly been a lifesaver for agents who are combating the market shift. It has 12 chapters, each of which discusses a different tactic on how to deal with the changing market. Today I’ll be discussing the first chapter, “Get Real, Get Right.”

The book begins by asking you to think about your mindset and strategy for attacking a market shift. In it, Gary says, “Decide what your priorities are and how much time to spend. If you don’t, someone else will.”

I love this quote. One thing I coach agents on is how to manage their time. There’s so much chaos and demand to complete a wide range of tasks—emails, text messages, Facebook private messages, Instagram notifications, people knocking on the door, clients that need certain things, and so on. It’s really challenging for most people, myself included, to control your time during a market shift, but it’s absolutely critical.

A helpful lesson I learned over time was that I didn’t need to control my entire week or even my entire day; I just needed to control the first two or three hours of my day.

That’s the main lesson of this chapter—to adopt a purposeful, business owner-oriented mindset around attacking the challenges in our industry.

“Shift” also discuss how a market shift is actually a time of opportunity, but it’s only an opportunity if you approach it with a certain mindset. During shifts, the market is often going down; trends aren’t matching the data, and houses aren’t selling. This creates confusion for agents, appraisers, and the consumers. When you’re a student of the market who watches the numbers daily, you can actually track where the market is going and leverage that opportunity to get ahead of your competition. It requires clarity and a plan, which all boils back to your frame of mind.

"Always ask yourself if you’re working in the market of the moment or if you’re in the market of yesterday."

It’s important to remember that while you can’t control everything that happens around you, you can control your attitude and the activities I’m carrying out in the first few hours of every day.

Further still, “Shift” teaches us that what worked yesterday might not work today. The market is always changing and evolving, the same way our industry is. For example, in consulting with lots of agents who invest in online lead generation, I’m hearing from multiple sources that they’re not getting nearly as many leads from sites like Zillow as they used to.

Always ask yourself if you’re working in the market of the moment or if you’re in the market of yesterday. Are you measuring where your business comes from? Are you tracking your conversion rates?

As the owner or leader of your business, the most important thing for you to focus on is to get back into the lead generation and lead conversion components of your business. When the market is shifting, that’s where you need to dive deep.

When there are chaos and confusion in everything, it can be very challenging to tackle all the problems that are happening. But I can tell you that when you focus, take back the job of lead generation, and get to the ground floor, you will gain control of your business.

In upcoming videos, I’ll walk you through the 11 other tactics discussed in Gary Keller’s “Shift.” In the meantime, if you have any questions about improving your business or feedback about the book, I’d love to hear from you.